October 2nd

The date October 2nd might not mean much to you, but it matters a great deal to me. You see, it's my birthday.

But you're asking yourself "Why does he have a picture of Gandhi with this post?" Simple - it's his birthday, too.

Lots of other famous people actually. Some well known in modern culture such as Sting (born Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner) or Kelly Ripa (who is older than me born in 1970 though she looks much better). Yet other celebrities like Groucho Marx (of the Brothers), Don McLean (American Pie) and Bud Abbott (and Costello) were also delivered on the 2nd.

If you're a Star Trek fan - and make no doubt I am - both Avery Brooks (Captain Sisko on Deep Space Nine) and Persis Khambatta (Ilia from The Motion Picture) share my birthday.

Significant to history both Cordell Hull (American Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize recipient) and Richard III (King of England and of Shakespeare fame) came into the world this day.

The more literate might be interested to know Graham Green (author of books including The Quiet American) and Wallace Stevens (American poet) also celebrated 10/2 as a birthday.

A few significant events occurred on the 275th day of the year, unless it was a leap year when it would have been the 276th day.

The Texas revolution began in 1835 which was notable because they lost their first battle. In 1789 George Washington sent a list of proposed amendments for the new American constitution to the states for ratification. These you will remember as the Bill of Rights.

For Charlie Brown fans this day is remembered for the first publication of Charles Shultz's Peanuts comic strip in 1950. Just a few years later we first were invited to travel into The Twilight Zone which premiered on this day in 1959.

One of my personal heroes, Thurgood Marshall, was sworn in as the first African American Supreme Court justice on an October Thursday in 1967. Another great American, President Woodrow Wilson, suffered a debilitating stroke on the second day of the month in 1924.

Perhaps this doesn't interest anyone or maybe you find it amusing I would ramble on with such. It does interest me and has shaped my world. Rather than simply looking at this day as a party, I've spent a good part of my life learning a little bit about people born on the same day or historical occurrences. Why else would I know Vasily Shukshin died on the very same day I was born? Or that he was on the Volga river filming the Russian epic They Fought For Their Motherland?

It is all a little bit of me and now you know some of it as well.